


Better to Reign in Hell, Et Cetera

by Moorishflower



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Demons, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-17
Updated: 2012-04-17
Packaged: 2017-11-03 20:07:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/385424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moorishflower/pseuds/Moorishflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which John is a demon, Sherlock is still a consulting detective, and there's merry mayhem all around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better to Reign in Hell, Et Cetera

When London's branch of the Infernal Embassy had informed John that he was to be put on duty, he'd been annoyed. Active duty, after all, meant taking on a human identity, and, with it, a human life and human idiosyncrasies, all of which would have to be remembered and managed and brought out at appropriate times. He would have to tuck himself into an impossibly small human vessel, and he would have to _blend in,_ lest he be found out and rousted by the local Church, and all this in the name of _observation_. John had, after all, been entirely sure that he wouldn't be asked to do any sort of real work, despite the fact that he had been a soldier for as long as he could remember, and had killed plenty of things that were much harder to kill than humans. And John, of course, was right. But he was also wrong about a number of things.

The vessel given to him, for one, was not so small as he'd been led to believe. Or, perhaps, it was simply that he was not so _big;_ John labored under no misapprehensions; he was not a Deadly Sin, was not one of the Fallen, and he certainly wasn't an Archduke. He was just...John. Slipping into his new skin was as easy as slipping into a warm bath, and, inside, it was comfortably roomy without being cavernous. Sort of homey, like it had been tailored just for him (as it turned out, it had been; no one had wanted to sell their soul for a chance at a lesser demon riding them).

He had also assumed that posing as human would be tedious and boring, but the fact of the matter was that it was anything but. Sometime in the last few centuries since John had been topside, humans had invented computers, and competitive baking, and _Top Gun_. John was appropriately impressed. He had assumed that electricity and hot water were Infernal things, but apparently the higher ups had taken their cue from...well, from higher up. _Ha._

What was icing on the cake, though, the thing that really convinced him it wasn't so bad, was his charge. His human. Striking, beautiful, mercurial,  _his._

Sherlock Holmes.

He couldn't have planned for Sherlock, not if he'd had a million years and a minute-by-minute transcription of the man's entire life thus far, and that he manages to catch and hold Sherlock's interest at all is a testament to how out of place he is, rather than to how actually exciting or interesting he is. Sherlock has no use for the ordinary, but he's quite attracted, like a moth to flame, to the extraordinary, to the unusual and the strange. Sherlock keeps him around because John is just a little bit off-kilter from the rest of the world, removed enough (however slightly) that Sherlock can't quite figure him out. This gives John the advantage...in his paperwork, if in nothing else, as it means that Sherlock does not immediately demand his departure. All of his reports are on time; when Moriarty starts sniffing about Sherlock, John is there to take down notes. When he's strapped into an explosive vest and subsequently hurled into a pool, his report stretches on for a hundred and thirty-two pages.

He's told that Sherlock Holmes is bound for great things. That he hovers in the between-space, belonging to neither Kingdom, not Infernal and not Celestial, but something else entirely. Given a few dozen years (and perhaps an extension on his lifespan), he might eventually be the closest thing they'll have to a human ambassador to the Kingdoms. Keeping tabs on him is a great honor, though you wouldn't think it, to hear the Angels go on about his _reckless disregard for property_ and  _tendencies towards sociopathy_ , but those are things that John rather likes about Sherlock.

The story of how Sherlock discovers his true nature is a long one, played out over the course of their first year together, and submitted (in truncated form) to the Met, and (in slightly less truncated form) to the Infernal Embassy as an incident report. It's ultimately decided, after a month of bureaucratic nonsense, that Sherlock knowing precisely who and what he is has had no observable effect on the man's world-view, and so John is allowed to stay. The upside being, of course, that now he can lounge about the flat with as much of himself hanging out (so to speak) as is physically possible: horns, tail, wings and all.

Which is precisely what he's doing on one balmy Saturday evening, the newspaper in his lap and the television droning quietly in the background, when Sherlock comes home early from an impromptu supplies-run to Bart's.

"Oh," John hears from the door, a little bit alarmed, but quickly recovering; undoubtedly Sherlock's voice. He doesn't look up from his newspaper, but he can see, through his third eye (he'd had to explain to Sherlock that no, there was not actually a _physical_ third eye, but that it was an expression that encompassed all aspects of Othersight), Sherlock standing in the doorway with an expression that's a bit like awe and a bit like confusion, and a whole awful lot like interest. "I wasn't aware that you were..."

It's such a rare event to hear Sherlock so gobsmacked that he can't think of some witty bon mot or other, and so John gives him a second of strained silence, luxuriating in it. Then he says, "You can come in, you know. It's not like you've caught me with my hand down my pants." Though, if Sherlock had, John wouldn't be particularly adverse to that, either.

"I suppose this is something I must acclimate myself to, in any case." His macabre shopping goes in the kitchen, and a moment later Sherlock joins him in the living room, flinging himself dramatically down onto the sofa and staring at John with piercing blue-green eyes.

John is not what one would call _dressed to impress_. He's capable of it, when he wants, but it's all smoke and mirrors. He's not innately splendid the way Archdukes or the Fallen are, and he hasn't got that certain something that the Sins have, either. His wings are small and black and furled against his shoulders, otherworldly but not ethereal and beautiful. Superficially resembling bat's wings, furred in some places and scaled in others, they measure at precisely .73 meters (measured when he was still an adolescent, and John has discovered, to his amusement, that a similar ritual takes place amongst humans, albeit with genitals, rather than wings), and are utterly useless for flying. This is hardly a problem--flight has precious little to do with wing structure and body mass when it comes to the Infernals--but Sherlock eyes them all the same, as if he were expecting something a bit more impressive.

"You're staring," John says, and Sherlock starts a bit. Then, contrary creature that he is, he stares harder.

"If you didn't want me looking then you wouldn't have them out," is his response, and John sighs deeply, and folds his newspaper, and keeps it in his lap while Sherlock drinks his fill.

All Infernals are built differently. Archdukes tend to be a bit more frightening, the Fallen as beautiful and tragic and feathered, and the Sins favor their respective...well, sins. But for those like John, it's more down to genetics than anything else. His mother had small horns, and so he has small horns, two inches long at the most, black and sharp and curled a bit where they grow from his forehead, just above his eyebrows on either side. His father, on the other hand, had quite a long tail, and so John's got that, as well, looped around his waist like a slithery belt. Neither of his parents, thank Lucifer, were possessed of cloven hooves. He can only imagine what it would be like to shop for proper footwear, if that were the case.

"You have horns," Sherlock says. He's never been a man for stating the obvious, so John waits patiently while the rest of his thoughts sort themselves out. "Are they for defensive purposes?"

"They used to be. Evolution isn't limited to humans, you know."

"Mm. Same with the wings, then. Far too small for proper flight."

"Powered flight," John corrects. "I'm perfectly capable of flying using other methods."

"May I?" Sherlock is suddenly up, on the move, no, on the _prowl,_ leaning into John's space with one hand slightly outstretched, as if to touch. John considers his options: horns are the safest, the only thing that wouldn't require damage control. They're just bone, no more sensitive than John's hair or fingernails, but his wings and tail are a different matter. Erogenous zones, both of them, and while the thought of Sherlock touching them doesn't displease John, he suspects that it might make Sherlock feel uncomfortable.

Still, when he answers, he only says, "Sure," giving no instructions, placing no boundaries. Sherlock's hand goes to his forehead, predictably, but that's likely because his horns are closest. Clever fingers follow the curve of them, Sherlock pressing his fingertips to the points, very nearly drawing blood.

"They feel like horns." He sounds confused, and John laughs.

"Were you expecting them to be hot?"

"I don't know what I was expecting."

"That's rare, for you."

"Indeed." Sherlock's fingers trip down his face, over his cheeks and along the curve of his jaw. John ought to say that there's nothing strange about _this_ part of him, but he doesn't. Lets Sherlock explore at his leisure. How can he say no? The man looks like Christmas and his birthday have both come early.

 "Are these functional?"

John extends his wing, a rolling, rippling stretch of muscle and sinew and bone, much to Sherlock's delight. "I can move them, if that's what you mean." His breath hitches as Sherlock's hands immediately go over his shoulders, searching for and finding the wing base beneath John's jumper. It's a thick, rugged joint, roughly analogous to the knuckle of a human thumb, though significantly larger and hardier. It's unholy sensitive for all that, however, and John's eyes flutter closed as Sherlock explores. He can't stop a shiver from running through him at the feeling; it's been a very long time.

Sherlock stops. John cracks open one eye, pupil--originally slitted--blown wide from the dimness from the flat and, of course, from the surprisingly firm touches to his wing. "Ye-es?" His voice breaks a little, there, and so he clears his throat. "What are you staring at?"

"You find this arousing."

Lovely Sherlock, blunt as ever. John exhales, and somewhere in that resigned huff of air is laughter, and a fondness that will stretch out across millennia, if Sherlock will allow it (John has no doubt that Sherlock would accept an offer to live fifty, a hundred, a thousand more years, if only to see the progression of technology and to still be able to solve his cases, but John wonders, and often, if Sherlock would want  _him_ around for all of it, for any of it, for even one more second of his brilliant and cluttered life).

"They're very sensitive," is what he says, and it isn't a denial.

Sherlock doesn't jerk his hand away. Interesting.

"Does that serve some purpose?"

John shrugs. "About as much a purpose as nerves endings on a prick, I suspect." It's deliberately coarse language, because if Sherlock is just delaying the inevitable then John doesn't want any part of it. He either wants Sherlock to continue doing whatever it is he was doing, or else to leave entirely; he despises that space between action and inaction, that pause, that deep breath before the plunge.

Sherlock's hand starts to move again. He follows the length of John's right wing, over humerus, radius, propatagium, the velvet-soft skin between metacarpals and thumb, fingertips tracking, tracking, memorizing. Here is a piece of unique anatomy, at once familiar and unfamiliar, a wing that cannot be used as a wing. The muscles and the bones are similar to what Sherlock will know from primary school dissections, but springing from human (he is not human) flesh. Sherlock goes back to the first joint, prompting a low, trembling sound from John's throat, a purr that obviously takes Sherlock by surprise. When he digs his thumb in, John makes the noise again.

"How many bones?"

"Twenty-nine," John mutters. He flexes his wing, curls it at the first joint and lays the digits across Sherlock's wrist, a demonstration of the flexibility that two measly extra bones can impart. Sherlock looks about as charmed as he's physically capable of looking. "Can you pick things up?" he demands, and John flexes again, wrapping his fingers around Sherlock's forearm and slowly lifting it. His wing trembles with exertion, and he can't support any sort of weight for long, but Sherlock seems appeased.

And then Sherlock says, "Is this still arousing to you?" and John gestures to his crotch with one hand. Sherlock eyes him curiously, but not, John imagines, dispassionately. "The fact that I'm a man doesn't bother you."

"There's not a lot that does bother me."

"Nor the fact that I'm...me?"

Is that hesitancy? John opens both eyes, only to end up squinting because suddenly Sherlock is very, very close. His tail uncoils from about his waist, the flat, flexible spade-tip coming up to prod at the underside of Sherlock's chin. John mutters an apology (it's got a mind of its own, like a sodding cat, really), but Sherlock responds--and John should have predicted this--by offering his other hand, his free hand, for John's tail to wind 'round and 'round. Lovely, beautiful, achingly warm human skin. John sighs like a virginal maiden and Sherlock bloody well  _smirks at him._

"None of that," John warns, but when Sherlock leans forward to kiss him (finally, finally) he tilts his head up, obliging, and savors the fire of this singular human spirit.  



End file.
